The present disclosure relates to an HTTP adaptive streaming method and apparatus considering energy consumption of a mobile terminal in a heterogeneous wireless network.
To meet the demand for wireless data traffic having increased since deployment of 4G (4th-Generation) communication systems, efforts have been made to develop an improved 5G (5th-Generation) or pre-5G communication system. Therefore, the 5G or pre-5G communication system is also called a ‘Beyond 4G Network’ or a ‘Post LTE System’.
The 5G communication system is considered to be implemented in higher frequency (mmWave) bands, e.g., 60 GHz bands, so as to accomplish higher data rates. To decrease propagation loss of the radio waves and increase the transmission distance, the beamforming, massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), Full Dimensional MIMO (FD-MIMO), array antenna, an analog beam forming, large scale antenna techniques are discussed in 5G communication systems.
In addition, in 5G communication systems, development for system network improvement is under way based on advanced small cells, cloud Radio Access Networks (RANs), ultra-dense networks, device-to-device (D2D) communication, wireless backhaul, moving network, cooperative communication, Coordinated Multi-Points (CoMP), reception-end interference cancellation and the like.
In the 5G system, recent developments include Hybrid FSK and QAM Modulation (FQAM) and sliding window superposition coding (SWSC) as an advanced coding modulation (ACM), and filter bank multi carrier (FBMC), non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA), and sparse code multiple access (SCMA) as an advanced access technology.
An adaptive streaming technology corresponds to a technology, which adaptively selects a proper video quality in consideration of a network environment and an environment of a client terminal; that is, adaptive streaming technologies configured to meet quality desired by a user in time-varying wireless network environment. The adaptive streaming technology is applied based on various network protocols, such as a Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) or a Real-Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP), and a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) adaptive streaming technology using the HTTP is spotlighted at present.
The HTTP adaptive streaming technology may have advantages of improvement of a network compatibility problem of the streaming service. The advantages may arise through the use of the conventional HTTP technology and reuse of the conventional HTTP server for the streaming service. Further, in the HTTP adaptive streaming technology, since a client has a core part of the streaming control, a client-oriented streaming service for may be provided for the client receiving the service.
FIG. 1 illustrates an example of structures of a server and a client that provide Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH) contents. A video provided by a server 100 of the DASH is encoded in various levels of quality. For example, one video may be encoded and stored as a video 120 encoded at a low bitrate, a video 130 encoded at a high bitrate, and a video encoded at an intermediate bitrate.
One encoded video 120 may include segments 122, 124, and 126 of a predetermined play time unit. The server 100 of the DASH provides information, such as quality of video, play time of a video and a data amount to the client 110. The information is recorded in a Media Presentation Description (MPD) file 140.
The client 110 makes a request for the MPD 140 to the server 100 for DASH service. When the client 110 receives the MPD 140 from the server 100, the client 110 may know information such as quality of a video stored in the server 100, a play time of the video, and the like. Thereafter, the client 110 may make a request for a segment according to a network state and an environment of a client terminal based on the received MPD. The client 110 makes a request for the segment through an HTTP 150, receives the segment in response to the request, and plays a video.
The client 110 may include a controller 112 that performs an operation of requesting/receiving the MPD and requesting/receiving the segment and a media play unit 114 that receives the received segment and plays media.
DASH technology, however, operates on a single network. Accordingly, when a state of a wireless channel for communication is not good or traffic congestion occurs, a smooth service is not possible even though the adaptive streaming technology is applied.
Thus, new technologies to remove limitations of a single network through the use of a plurality of networks by the client in a heterogeneous wireless network environment have been proposed. When the client simultaneously uses a plurality of networks, the limitation of the single network can be compensated for and also network throughput can be improved. Therefore, the client can receive a higher definition video.